The Monday Theory Read online

  THE

  MONDAY THEORY

  Douglas Clark

  © Douglas Clark 1983

  Douglas Clark has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1983 by Victor Gollancz.

  This edition published in 2019 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  for

  Katharine Emma

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter One

  Rhoda Carvell was wearing a rust-coloured, fine worsted suit, severely cut to fit her slim figure and heavily saddle-stitched, in fawn, a quarter of an inch in from every edge and turning. Her chestnut-coloured hair, worn long, with only its natural waves to break its symmetry, was topped with a little cap cut on Juliet lines, carried out by some skilled milliner in a fawn material to match the stitching on the suit. The decoration—classical little pearl shapes—had been built up from the thread of the same rust red as the suit. As she entered the main, open-plan editorial office of the Daily View she caused a couple of subs to give her exactly similar wolf whistles, which she ignored. She spoke to no one as she made her way in the long swinging stride of an athlete past tight-packed desks, to the Women’s Page corner of the office. There, she placed the envelope she was carrying on the desk of the Women’s Page editor, Golly Lugano.

  “You’re a day early,” said Golly. “Today’s Monday.”

  Golly Lugano was a middle-aged butch who dyed her hair ginger and used black eye shadow inside her nostrils. Nobody knew quite why, though it was generally believed that Golly had at one time appeared on the music-halls in some minor act as a male impersonator and the black nostrils were the last vestiges of the stage make-up she favoured at that time.

  “The divorce comes up tomorrow, so I won’t be coming in.”

  “There’s no need for you to go to the court, is there?” The voice crackled as Golly spoke. The audible result of years of chain-smoking.

  “I’ve said I’ll be there. There could be some good background copy in it. You never know, I might even get a piece from it.”

  “All’s grist,” agreed Golly, stubbing out a cigarette with her left hand and withdrawing another from the open packet on her desk with the right. “And if you appear in court in that rig-out, you’ll wow the judge.”

  Rhoda made no reply. Instead she turned to a young man sitting at a desk scarcely four feet away from Golly’s. “And how’s Nettle today, my little Stinging Nettle?”

  “I’m fine, Mrs Carvell. You look great, too.”

  “I feel well, Nettle. I’m about to get my freedom.”

  “You’re divorcing the professor because you don’t get enough freedom, Mrs Carvell? He seemed a pretty easy-going chap to me. I know I only met him once . . .”

  “He’s divorcing me, Nettle. You wouldn’t understand, but an easy-going man can curb a woman’s freedom just as much as an old stickler. Not that the dear professor is easy-going. Just preoccupied most of the time.”

  “He may be a professor, but I reckon he’s a fool if he’s divorcing you, Mrs Carvell.”

  “Why, thank you, Nettle. That’s a pretty compliment.”

  Golly Lugano pushed aside the article she had been reading and drew Rhoda’s attention back to the business in hand. “What’s the ploy this week, dearie?”

  “The Conservative Woman. They’ve just had their conference.”

  “Dreary, dearie. All wearing those abortions of hats they seem to affect on these occasions.”

  “Oh, I agree, Golly. But I think it is time I took the directoire knickers off them over their views on capital punishment and birching.”

  “Mmm . . . It sounds promising, but it’s been done before. What exactly had you in mind?”

  Rhoda perched on the corner of Golly’s desk, so that she was only half facing the editor. But she turned her head towards her and used her elegant hands to gesture as she spoke.

  “I’ve thought up this idea of what I’ve called The Restoration Garden Party—to be held in the afternoon of the day of the first execution. Side shows—guess the length of the rope; play the new game, Backhangman, etcetera. Tea menu, drop scones . . .”

  “Long-drop scones.”

  “If you like. And gallows gâteau. That sort of thing.”

  “I like it. There’s more, I hope?”

  “The second half is The Birching Coffee Morning—to be attended by all the Cats. Strike a blow for law and order! Lashings of coffee. Stroke by stroke account of the great occasion. It’s the Weal Thing!”

  “Lovely,” gabbled Golly, and then grinned, a movement which tipped upwards the end of her current cigarette to such a degree that the smoke went straight into her eyes. “Damn!” she said and then, when she had recovered from the smart, “I can hardly wait to get going on it, dearie. I’ll lay on cartoon illustrations. One typical specimen called the Black Widow and another the Trap-Door Spider.”

  “Play it any way you like, Golly, but don’t go over the score with the cartoons.”

  “A typeface with a nice, twisty, rope effect for the headline and crossheads?”

  “I’ll leave it to you. I’ve got quite a lot to do before tomorrow, so I must rush.”

  As Rhoda prepared to go, Golly put out her hand for the envelope. “It’s all in here, is it?”

  “Yes.” Rhoda started to pull on one glove. “And I’ve got an idea for next week. I shall probably post it in.”

  Golly looked up from the script she was by now reading. “Why’s that, dearie?”

  “I’m going down to the cottage to stay for a few days.”

  “Understandable. You’ll want to rejoice a bit, I expect. You’ll be taking Woodruff with you?”

  “Ralph will be with me,” admitted Rhoda. “I should be able to catch the Saturday collection with my piece. Anyway, I’ll see you get it in good time.”

  “Ta. And if it’s as good as this . . .”

  “You like it?”

  “Just what I wanted.”

  “In that case . . . ’bye, Golly. Don’t smoke yourself to death.”

  Rhoda Carvell turned and threaded her way back, through the desks, to the door.

  *

  Detective Superintendent George Masters lay in bed for a minute or two after his wife, Wanda, had got up to attend to their young son, Michael, who was causing some disturbance in his own small room next door. Masters guessed at some sort of stick or toy being dragged across the spells of the cot interspersed with occasional drum beats with the same instrument on the more solid head or foot boards of the cot.

  Masters, unusually for him, felt grumpy. It was not the noise that caused the feeling. He was used to that by now. Michael played happily every morning—had done ever since he was able to pull himself up and prance about in his cot—but he timed his playing very nicely to coincide with the time when his parents should be thinking of getting up. So his exploits caused no ill feeling. But Masters definitely felt slightly less than cheerful as he padded to the window to look out at the day.

  It was a beautiful October morning. The sun was already up, and as he stripped off his pyjama jacket, ran his fingers through his hair and stifled a yawn, he could sense that it was going to be a bright, crisp day. Just the sort of day he should have revelled in, because he liked autumn best of all the seasons. The autumn reds and yellows and dry rustly leaves, not the wet, misty days with leaves slippery underfoot and trees dripping as one passed under them.

  But despite the day, Masters still felt grumpy, though he had the sense to rea
lise why. Last night he had been obliged to suffer the Cartwrights. He mentally used the word suffer with conscious exactitude. Cartwright was the headmaster of a nearby comprehensive school. Somehow, Mrs Cartwright had cottoned on to Wanda over some business to do with an adoption society in which Wanda was interested. Short of downright rudeness, Wanda had been unable to shake off the older woman who had shown herself determined to become a friend of the Masters’ family. Mrs Cartwright had succeeded so well, that from time to time she and her husband had perforce to be invited for supper. Much to Masters’ annoyance the compliment was returned with unfailing regularity.

  And last night Masters had come off second best in a conversation with Cartwright simply because he, as host, had felt obliged to tone down his argument out of courtesy to guests who, in return, had presumed upon such leniency by stepping-up the power of their verbal attack.

  Masters went across to the bathroom. As he cleaned his teeth, he recalled some of the exchanges of the previous evening. Several times Cartwright had started sentences with: ‘In your profession . . .’. It had irritated Masters who always insisted that though he was a professional policeman, police work was not, of itself, a profession. Cartwright had told him he was old hat if he still believed the Church, Medicine, Law and Education were the only professions and had called on Mrs Cartwright to support him. Mrs Cartwright, who was also a schoolteacher, had been examining a Vogue pattern book with Wanda on the other side of the small room. They had been choosing a style for Mrs Cartwright’s new winter coat, which she was to make herself, so she knew nothing of the subject under discussion, but she was the know-all type and had jumped in feet first to support her husband.

  By now Masters was lathering his face. The memory of the conversation caused him to wield the brush so angrily that a large dollop of foaming soap shot across and hit the mirror. He wiped it away irritably. The only point he had been trying to make was that, in his experience, the older professions were often jealous of their image to the point of obstructiveness whereas other members of the community—again in his experience—were, by and large, more helpful. He had wanted to explain that he had on occasions found the youngest of lawyers treating him as a nit-wit when a point of law arose; young medics had read him lectures when it came to injuries; and some pedagogues always assumed nobody but themselves had ever entered a seat of learning and knew anything of education.

  That’s what life had taught Masters. His remarks were to have been merely an observation based on his own wide experience, but he had been shouted down before he could produce it. The truth was—as he well knew—that he didn’t like the Cartwrights whom he suspected of adopting an entirely spurious air of erudition. But it seemed they had managed to get their hooks into Wanda so, to avoid unpleasantness, he tried to tolerate them. He nevertheless found it a very, very difficult role to play.

  He was towelling off when Wanda brought him a cup of black coffee upstairs. As she kissed him and murmured a compliment about nice smooth cheeks and nice smells of shaving soap, he asked: “What’s all this? Are we late?”

  “No.”

  “What then?”

  “It’s to say sorry for subjecting you to the Cartwrights last night. They get up your nose, don’t they?”

  “That’s a ladylike way of putting it.”

  She grimaced. “What can I do about them?”

  He put his arm round her waist. “Nothing, my sweet. I’m away from home so often that to choke off people who drop in and keep you company from time to time would be silly. Really I should be as grateful to them as I am to Doris Green for their kindness while you are house-tied by young Michael, but they do rub me up the wrong way.”

  “That’s because they are basically anti-police and . . .”

  “Anti-everything else? I know.”

  He kissed her again and let her go. She left him, humming to herself as she went. He mentally berated himself for feeling grumpy. He reckoned he had no right to indulge in such feelings when he was blessed with a wife like Wanda. He returned to the bedroom to dress.

  Wanda saw him off half an hour later as he prepared to walk the short distance to the Yard. It was a lovely morning with just a nip in the air. Wanda had insisted that he should wear his light coat—a fawn houndstooth raglan that had cost the earth from Aquascutum.

  Green met him in the corridor outside his office. Formerly a DCI, Green was now a Senior Scene of Crime Officer, a title bestowed on him so that the Yard could retain his services beyond police retirement age.

  “Anderson wants to see you, George.”

  “He’s in? So early?” It was barely ten to nine, and the Assistant Commissioner (Crime) was not noted for arriving before the streets were aired.

  “He sounded a bit mardy.”

  “Did he now?” Masters entered his office to take off his coat. “Did you get the impression that I have done something to upset him? Or is there some other minor cause that got him out of bed on the wrong side this morning?”

  “Some young cub reporter rang him up before seven.”

  “Good Lord! Whatever for?” Masters was by now beginning to feel more cheerful. He took out his pipe and started to charge it with newly-rubbed Warlock Flake. Green carefully selected one from among a number of crumpled cigarettes in a crushed carton before replying.

  “He only said he wanted to ask the AC’s opinion on the deaths of two people.”

  “What two people?”

  “A woman called Rhoda Carvell and a chap called Woodruff.”

  “Rhoda Carvell? Isn’t she some sort of journalist?”

  “That’s the girl,” said Green. “Writes a so-called dynamic weekly column for women in the Daily View. Actually it’s not half as dynamic as most of the over-the-garden-wall variety of conversations normal women get into. But they haven’t the gall to put it into writing. The average washerwoman is slightly more sensitive than Rhoda Carvell.”

  “I know. Fishwife. Female bummaree.”

  “You know her stuff do you?” asked Green. “That surprises me. I wouldn’t have thought her rubbish would have been up your street.”

  “It isn’t. But that woman Cartwright who visits Wanda is an avid reader of the Rhoda Carvell column.”

  “That figures.”

  “Whenever she comes to the house she quotes bits at me. Always the bits that seem to march with some particular opinion of her own.”

  “She would.” Green looked across at Masters. “George,” he said hesitantly, “I know it’s no business of mine and you also know I’d be the last person on earth to criticize anything Wanda did . . .”

  “But?”

  “Can’t you get her to drop that Cartwright woman? She’s not a fit companion for Wanda or young Michael.”

  “Or me,” grinned Masters. “Don’t worry, Bill. I’ve decided to work on it. But what is it that makes you think La Cartwright—apart from being an unlikeable woman—is likely to be a bad acquaintance for Wanda? Assuming you meant she would be bad?”

  “I’ve overheard her talking to Wanda,” said Green cryptically.

  “What about?”

  “She’s a clever propagandist.”

  “Is she now?”

  “She’s always getting at Wanda about how repressive the police are.”

  “Wanda wouldn’t swallow that, Bill.”

  “Maybe not. But Cartwright butters her up about you.”

  “How on earth . . .”

  “She’s always telling Wanda that you, of course, are wonderful, but you’re not typical. Tells the lass that living with you blinds her to the faults of the force at large. Says because her husband is a reasonable man she is not in a position to judge critically the corruption that is rife in the police. And so on. I tell you, it’s clever, George, because naturally Wanda thinks you’re the cat’s whiskers and it makes pleasant hearing to have this other woman say so.”

  “Meaning that if Wanda knows—or believes—half of what she’s told to be true, she’ll swallow the other
half?”

  “Not right off. She’s too smart for that. But anything said often enough . . .”

  “Begins to assume the trappings of truth?”

  “Something like that.”

  Masters tapped his pipe out and laid it in the big ashtray on his desk. He looked across at Green. “Thanks for telling me, Bill. I know what you think of Wanda so I’d never think of questioning your motive or your judgement. But why haven’t you mentioned this before?”

  “Because you’ve never blasted off about the Cartwrights before. For all I knew you could have approved of them, so it wasn’t for me to criticize your family friends.”

  Masters nodded. “Understood, chum. Now, I suppose I’d better report to Anderson or he’ll be getting even more disgruntled than he was when he arrived. While I’m away, Bill, would you see what you can dredge up about this Carvell woman—just in case we need it?”

  As Green had said, Anderson was testy. “Nothing to do with us,” he growled. “The pair were found dead in a deserted cottage in West Sussex. The young fool who rang me didn’t mention that. He simply said they’d been found dead last night, and before I knew where I was, I was in a discussion with the dam’ fellow. And me only half awake.”

  “Why did he ring you, sir, and not the Yard direct?”

  “Because the woman was one of the regular contributors to their paper. Writes a weekly article blasting everybody and everything in sight. Does it indiscriminately so that she’s bound to please somebody every issue. Got a reputation for plain speaking based upon nothing more than filling a page with vitriolic rubbish. And there was this chap wanting to know what I was going to do about it and hinting I should have been up all night investigating.”

  Masters heard him out and then asked: “He thought you should become involved because she’s a journalist, sir?”

  “Something of the sort.”

  “You said ‘found dead’. Two of them.”

  “In bed.”

  “Accident? Suicide pact? Murder? Did your young informant suggest which, sir?”